Rockets' Red Glare
by LittleMender
Summary: These next times are seriously damaging my calm, he thought wryly.  But he knew he wouldn't give them up.  Not unless she did first. Installment #7 in the Holiday/Next Time Series.


**Number 7 in the Holiday/Next Time Series**** – 4th of July, U.S. Independence Day**

ROCKETS' RED GLARE

"All I'm saying is, you look tighter than a drum. You're all snarls and tangles and knots. I'll bet your muscles are _full_ of knots."

"And all _I'm_ saying is neither my knots nor my muscles are any concern of yours."

"Well, they wouldn't be, but I spend a lot of time with you, and—"

"I know. When I'm not happy, you're not happy."

"Exactly."

"What do my knots have to do with that?"

"When you're knotty, I'm in trouble a lot more. You know I could help you with—"

"No! For the last time, I am not letting you work you voodoo-muju on me."

He looked at her as they continued walking, almost turning to face her full on.

"My _voodoo-muju_?"

"Hypnotize me. Mesmerize me. Loosen the confines of my mortal coil. Whatever you wanna call it."

"Your mortal coil? That's rather highbrow, Lisbon."

"Stop patronizing me. I read."

"I'm not patronizing you, though I'm glad you're stepping out of the usual gun magazine material. And I promise you will not be mesmerized or . . . uncoiled."

She ignored the gun magazine jibe.

"Then what are we talking about?"

"Getting rid of your knots."

"Jane, so help me—" She could just _feel_ another knot forming.

They crested the rise and headed down the steep slope to the scene unfolding below them. The places were different, but the stage was always set in the same and all too familiar way—police and morgue vehicles, yellow crime scene tape, onlookers kept out of the way while craning their necks to see the gruesome sight that had brought California's finest to San Francisco on such a beautiful Fourth of July day.

"Think of it as a restorative that begins in the mind."

"And ends where, exactly?"

"Well, there may be some touching involved."

"Like what kind of touching?" Heading down the incline, the ground was too uneven to take her eyes off of the path, and she was sure he was using that to his advantage. No matter what he said, she knew that he knew she had been right when she said she could tell when he was lying or up to something. If she could only look at him while they were talking.

"My hands. On your shoulders and maybe lower."

"You're offering me a _backrub_? I haven't heard such a lame—Are you _sure_ you never went to college?"

"It's not like that, Lisbon, I promise."

She snorted at him in response.

"You sat hunched over the wheel all the way here, you've got that furrow between your eyebrows—" he said, gesturing to his own forehead, "—that generally precedes a killer headache for which you can no longer wolf down aspirin because of your pre-ulcerous condition—"

"Of which you are the major cause."

"It's more likely from all the aspirin—"

"For which you are _also_ mostly responsible."

"If that's the case—and that's a big "if"—I should be the one tasked with helping you."

"By acting like a grown-up?"

He rolled his eyes at her. "By giving you a backrub. I've been reading about this technique that's been practiced for centuries by swamis in India. The guys who sleep on nails and walk on fire?" He held out his hands, palms down, and wriggled his fingers as if that would entice her.

"Are you insane? Why on _earth_ would I let you touch me using some ancient crackpot hocus pocus? Come to think of it, why would I let you touch me at all?

"You let me touch you all the time."

"No, I don't. You touch me before I get a chance to stop you. There's a big difference."

There was silence for a few seconds, only the sounds of their footsteps, scrabbling down the steep incline. She knew from long years of experience what was next.

"I'm sorry, Lisbon. If I had known how repulsive it was for you to suffer my invading your personal space, I never would have even considered . . ."

And now of course, in conditioned response, she felt badly. He certainly sounded like his feelings were hurt. She wished she could look at him. She would never admit how easy it was for him to play her, but then she knew she didn't have to. She had been in denial for years, but she knew it was there for all the world to see. They were almost near the bottom—if she could just hold off answering for a few more seconds.

"Lisbon?"

"I am not repulsed by your invading my personal space, all right?"

"So you don't mind that I touch you."

"No, I don't _mind_ that you touch me."

"So you like when I touch you."

"Yes—no—I said I don't mind."

"So you'll let me give you a backrub."

"I didn't say that. I just don't want you to do that . . . _stuff_ you do."

"Voodoo-muju and hocus-pocus? While I've been told there's magic in my touch, there is nothing of the occult here, Lisbon, or even anything remotely crackpot-ian about this method. It's been used for centuries in the Far East as a way to resolve stress. It cleanses the musculature—"

"I'll give you cleansed musculature—"

"You know your anger issues probably have a lot to do with the knots."

By now they had reached the actual scene and stood at the feet of the late Doreen Bonham.

"Well, whaddya know? They really _will_ let anybody come to one of these things!"

The ME rose from where she had been squatting by the body and pulled off her right latex glove with a resounding thwack then turned to look at Lisbon with an arched eyebrow. She was thirty-something, of medium height and slender build. Her hair hung just to her shoulder, coal black and straight, her skin was a flawless milky white and her eyes were clear blue. Jane thought this must be how the Disney version of Snow White would look in real life. Pure and delicate—an obvious deception.

"Lydia Stanton. What are you doing here?"

"Same thing I do at all the hot parties, Teresa. Just finished taking our girl's liver temp." She bent to retrieve the thermometer with her gloved hand. "If you two are finished, I'll give you the rundown."

She turned to where Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt had just arrived at the scene and stood at Lisbon's left, the three having hung back in an effort to stay out of the conversation between boss and consultant.

"Hey, Sunshine. Rigs."

Both agents responded apparently glad to see her. Stanton looked toward their left and motioned toward Van Pelt with her chin. "This your newbie?"

"Dr. Lydia Stanton, this is Agent Grace Van Pelt. Been with the team for three years." Stanton's gaze traveled back past Rigsby, Cho and Lisbon to rest on Jane. Motioning toward him now in the same way, she asked, "Who's the archeology professor?"

"Our consultant, Patrick Jane."

The ME mouthed an exaggerated and seemingly impressed "Oh-h-h" then grinned. Jane ran his thumbs along the underside of his lapels and beamed back at her. He was certain she already knew nearly everything knowable about Van Pelt as well as himself.

"You didn't answer my question, Lyddie. What are you doing here? I thought you were only consulting these days."

"I come in to lend a hand when things get backed up. It's summertime in San Fran, and people are killing each other over everything from the boy they met in the bar to who used the last of the toilet paper."

Lisbon nodded in understanding. "So what have we got?"

"Our deceased is Doreen Bonham, twenty-three years of age. Address on her license looks like someplace in North Beach. Boys are double checking and looking for employment details. Liver temp says she's been dead about five hours. Puts TOD at around two this morning."

Using the thermometer as a pointer, she indicated a small tarp that lay near the body with a collection of odds and ends on it.

"That group of stuff was found in her purse, that smaller pile was taken from her pockets, and that—" she pointed to a small piece of torn fabric, "—was clutched in her right hand. She was subdued with a stun gun, and there's a faint odor of burning almonds, cyanide I presume, injected rather than ingested. Preliminary cursory exam didn't expose an injection site, but I'll probably find one hidden in the burns from the stun gun. Oh, and she's missing her left hand."

"Missing. Like amputated?" Lisbon asked.

"Sort of. But not how you'd think." With that, Stanton turned away and whistled in five short bursts, the last lilting upward like a question before calling out, "Here, Fa-luffy!"

She ambled away from the body and over a berm of trees and flowering bushes. Jane, Lisbon and the rest of the team followed and stopped in their tracks just behind where Stanton had frozen in hers, having come face to face with a large, thin, and seemingly vicious dog of an indeterminable mix of breed. It looked mean and hungry and entirely too possessive of its new trophy. At the sight of the humans who had dared intrude on his breakfast, the dog dropped the hand and took one step forward, standing over it in a challenging stance and sniffing toward the ME.

"I think," Jane ventured, "he might be interested in your liver thermometer . . . thing."

Stanton tossed a "You've got to be kidding" sort of look over her shoulder at him, but turned back to notice the dog was definitely eying the thermometer rod. This was more than a little outside the realm of protocol, so Jane decided to make it easy on everyone by stepping slowly to the ME's side and taking the instrument from her grasp. He slowly swung away from the others in a wide arc, pulling the dog's attention as he went. Then, he extended the thermometer, its business end still caked in fresh tissue, toward the mastiff.

"Here, boy. Come on!" Jane tried to sound as calm, enticing and dog-friendly as he possibly could. "Come and get the liver pyuck."

The dog began to move slowly toward him, and when the beast was clear of the now forgotten appendage, Jane stopped in his backward movement and let the dog lick the goo from the rod. The others watched the scene, frozen to their respective spots, the silence broken only by various comments of "Yuck", "Eyew", and "Gross" from the women, Rigsby's "Cool!" and a mere "Huh" from Cho.

"Somebody wanna get the hand?" Jane asked ventriloquist style, reminding the others of why he was actually doing this. Lisbon, the first to regain a measure of awareness, stepped forward and gingerly lifted the now forgotten hand between one latex-gloved thumb and forefinger, shaking off the loose landscaping mulch as she stood.

Hand retrieved, liver pyuck ingested and Animal Control called, they all returned to the scene. When Jane attempted to return the thermometer, Stanton only raised her hands and shook her head as she motioned to a nearby trashcan.

"Just chuck it. I've got others."

Jane lobbed the unwanted thing into the waste receptacle and turned back to her with yet another grin as he held out his hand to accept a squirt of hand sanitizer from Van Pelt.

"Really? With what you do, you're squeamish about a dog licking your thermometer?"

"I've never fed a dog fresh-victim liver 'pyuck', and I have to draw the line somewhere."

She only looked at him for a moment when he dropped to the ground and started sniffing Doreen Bonham's body before she pulled off her left latex glove with another thwack and looked at Lisbon with an amused smirk.

"Give the boys the word when the professor's finished, and they'll bag and tag. See you at the precinct." Lisbon gave Van Pelt the order to go with the ME and start digging into Ms. Bonham's background then turned back and waited for Jane to finish his observations.

Jane liked Lydia Stanton. She was a couple of years older than Lisbon and had become an ME the year before Lisbon joined homicide. She had married an FBI agent nine years ago, and Wyatt Stanton was currently out of town on assignment. She was smart and funny and completely uninhibited. She watched Lisbon like a hawk, and it had not escaped Jane's notice that she observed his interactions with his boss the same way. While he was as accustomed to women watching him as he was to cops eyeing him with suspicion, he found the ME's open interest in him somewhat disconcerting. He thought it best to take a few steps back, not knowing how he would be able to distance himself from Lisbon without her natural and often insatiable curiosity coming into play. As it turned out, she made it easy for him.

When they entered the precinct building, Lisbon's phone beeped, and the conscientious officer on the other end gave her Doreen Bonham's home address and information on her employment at one of the ad agencies in the city. They had also located and informed the victim's boyfriend who was heading home to their shared apartment to meet whoever was coming to interview him. Jane, hearing snippets of the overly loud, overly eager voice on the other end of the call turned to head back to Lisbon's car. Her order pulled him up short.

"I'm heading upstairs to get things started with the captain. Cho take Jane with you and question the boyfriend. Rigsby, get Van Pelt and go to the agency, talk to her co-workers, boss, cleaning staff, whatever. Call me if you need anything at this end."

It took him a minute to switch gears, but following Cho's prompt and silently obedient example, he soon found himself hurtling toward North Beach where Doreen Bonham used to live in an apartment above an old beat coffee shop. He watched the city pass by, his thoughts oddly quiet, not really wanting to think about anything.

"This is her old precinct."

Jane turned to look at Cho, caught off guard by the randomness of the statement.

"When she was with SFPD. This was her precinct. Everybody in the building either knows her or knows of her."

Jane hadn't missed the pictures of her, old newspaper articles, commendations to the precinct she'd won for them in the glass case in the main reception area. Cho never said anything without a reason. And Cho had a way of reasoning nearly anything out. Jane didn't like to think someone was watching him, thinking they'd caught him out somehow. Especially when he hadn't been thinking anything at all.

"Really." It was more for confirmation than anything else.

Without taking his eyes off the hilly street, Cho smirked at him.

"Really."

They settled into quiet again, Jane irrationally _un_settled. Lisbon had sent him away so he wouldn't embarrass her in front of her former colleagues. More than that, he'd been exiled for the morning because she was embarrassed _by_ him—to be seen with him.

Once he'd walked away, Lisbon—not really thinking about why she was the only one _not_ conducting any interviews—headed for the elevator and—forgetting her stated reason for staying behind—headed straight to the basement morgue where the ME was just signing to accept Doreen's remains.

"So," Lydia asked nonchalantly and without any preamble at all, "what's the deal with your consultant?"

Lisbon tensed, remembering too late she had meant to go _up_stairs. Recovering quickly, she tossed out an unconcerned, "Why? You interested? Don't tell me there's trouble in Paradise."

"No trouble. Still Paradise. And still too smart to be derailed that easily. Besides," she added archly, "I don't think I'm his type."

"He's our team consultant, closes cases, been with the unit—"

"I know all that, Teresa." She was clearly exasperated. "Fake psychic, worked the Red John case off and on until his wife and daughter were murdered, joined full time a while after that, floated around with nobody willing to work with him for long until both he and the case landed on your doorstep, widower for eight years, drop dead gorgeous, interested in you, still wears his wedding ring. Does that cause a problem, by the way?"

Confident of getting some kind of answer, Lydia began cutting away Doreen's designer clothes.

"He wears his wedding ring because he's still in love with his wife. And he is not interested in me. Why does everybody always think that?"

"Because we're all dumb cops and professional investigators who don't know our badges from a hole in the ground. He was offering you a backrub."

"So?"

"Don't play naïve. I've been with the SFPD for over fifteen years, and no colleague has _ever_ offered me a _platonic_ massage."

"That's just the way he is—a little out there and bizarre."

Stanton quirked her eyebrow, and Lisbon laughed outright.

"Okay," she gave in, "he's a lot out there and _really_ bizarre. But it doesn't mean anything. He doesn't mean anything by it."

"Mm-hm. Because Patrick Jane often does things that don't mean anything."

"In this case he does. He likes to get under my skin, push my buttons."

"That's what I thought because that's exactly what that conversation sounded like."

"How much did you hear anyway?"

"Enough to know you like for him to touch you and he's _very_ interested in—what was it? Oh, yeah. 'Cleansing your musculature'."

Stanton waggled her eyebrows then burst into laughter at Lisbon's furious blush. The agent opened her mouth to say something, then, not knowing quite _what_ to say, closed it again. When she turned away abruptly, Lydia frowned, realizing she may have pushed too far—never a good thing with Teresa Lisbon.

"I'm sorry, T. I was only teasing. I shouldn't have pushed. You're right—he is _definitely_ bizarre. I mean I'd heard about him smelling the body, but until I actually saw it . . . It's just . . . the way you were talking and—Look, you know him better than I do. I'm sure you're right. It's just the way he is, and he's around you more than anyone else, so it's bound to—"

Now both women were feeling uncomfortable.

"Let's just drop it. I was being stupid. You know how I am. Always butting in. Can't keep my mouth shut. Just forget I said anything, okay?"

Lisbon nodded awkwardly not knowing why hearing this from an old friend was so upsetting. She'd heard snippets of office gossip in the ladies' room for years. It was to be expected even. But to have Lydia mention it when she'd just met Jane, the first time she'd seen them together, was more than uncomfortable.

"You've got to admit though. Drop. Dead. Gorgeous."

Now Lisbon laughed, put back at ease by her friend's unexpected statement. She knew good and well that once Wyatt had engaged her friend's romantic interest, Lydia Stanton as good as forgot there _were_ other men in the world.

"You really don't know when to keep your mouth shut, do you?"

Everything smoothed over, the subject was dropped, and Lisbon went back to working the case. It did not escape Lydia's attention, however, that her friend worked with Rigsby or Cho the rest of the day, nor that Patrick Jane did not seem all that happy about it, apparently so much so that he left the team behind and was out of contact for most of the afternoon.

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Their investigation progressed, and as Jane and Cho left Doreen's apartment, Lisbon called her second with information Rigsby and Van Pelt had picked up at her workplace. The consultant decided that it wouldn't bother him to get the information second hand, even though Lisbon usually called _him_ with such things, and was perfectly content to relay his insights back to her via Cho. Convinced of his own indifference, he had decided to forego the chance to go upstairs and make her just a little sorry for passing him over to instead head to the ad agency to check out a hunch. He was there barely twenty minutes before an irate Lisbon called to order him to get his ass back to the precinct after the company's office manager had called her to complain about him. He was met just inside the front door by Van Pelt who sheepishly handed him money, the team's lunch orders and directions to a Tandoori place about fifteen minutes away. Just as he arrived at the restaurant, Rigsby called him to cancel the lunch orders because they were all heading out. It all stuck in his craw just a little, but Jane appreciated that Lisbon needed her space, so he took the opportunity to drive around to cool off and do whatever the heck he wanted. While he was out, a thought that had nothing whatsoever to do with the case struck him, and he busied himself with a plan of action for later in the day. He told himself that his absence wouldn't be a problem—he was sure Lisbon et al were moving in the right direction with their suspicions, and he knew that the explanation for his ducking out would calm Lisbon's certain ire as well as stroke her sorely ruffled feathers.

Later, when he made his way back to the precinct, having accomplished his tasks and weighed the few discoveries they'd made so far in the case, he was disappointed to find the whole team away from the building, having returned once then gone out again. He was of a mind to go upstairs and introduce himself around, knowing how it would irk Lisbon and thinking she deserved it for abandoning him for the day. But he knew his plans for later would go awry if he did anything intentionally to make her angry and ultimately decided to head instead for the safety of the morgue.

Lydia looked up at him from the where she was bisecting a length of Doreen Bonham's colon, her right eye bugging in the lighted magnifying glass mounted at her forehead, and he was suddenly and uncomfortably aware that he had never been in a morgue during an actual autopsy. He knew she was grinning behind her mask at his discomfort as she pushed pause on the digital voice recorder next to her.

"Chartreuse isn't a good color on you," she taunted as she drew a surgical cloth over the entrails.

"Where is everybody?" He wasn't going to give her any satisfaction.

"By everybody, do you mean Lisbon?" Obviously, she meant to satisfy herself. He wasn't sure what that look was about.

"Are they all together?"

She relented. She'd already pushed too far once today.

"Cho and Van Pelt are doing a follow-up with a custodian at the ad agency, and Teresa and Rigsby are interviewing one of the agency's clients."

Damn. He had really wanted to nose around Doreen's office some more. He frowned, wondering if he should call Lisbon. She really should've called him or waited or—

"Something bothering you, Indiana?"

"I wanted to talk to a couple of people at the agency. She should've waited."

"On what? On you? To get over yourself and do what you were supposed to do?"

"Which was?" He was used to cops putting in their unsolicited two cents' worth about his way of doing things. It was like they all had the same stupid, intractable system. So, it surprised him when Lydia Stanton found fault with something completely unrelated to his lack of police-approved professionalism.

"_You_ should've _stayed_."

He didn't know what to say to that and was mortified at the words that tumbled out of his mouth.

"She didn't want me."

Lydia stared at him, more surprised than he at what he'd just said, what he'd just tacitly admitted. He jammed his hands into his jacket pockets and shrugged forlornly at her. _In for a penny_.

"She's been cutting me out all day, since we first headed into the precinct. Didn't want to be seen with me around her old colleagues, I guess."

She half expected him to weakly kick the table.

"Can you blame her?"

"What? I can behave. I wouldn't have embarrassed her. Not here."

"As opposed to everywhere else?"

"I don't embarrass her _everywhere_."

She wasn't about to get into an argument over technicalities.

"She thinks you don't mean anything by the things you say and do."

"Half of the time I don't."

"No. I mean the things you do and say to _her_, that it doesn't mean anything to _you_. Whether you embarrass her or compliment her or make her so angry she could spit nails it doesn't mean anything. Like it's just a way to pass the time."

He couldn't miss her implication. _Like __she's__ just a way to pass the time_. Why on earth had he thought it would be safe down here? She took pity on him.

"Look, I found something in Doreen's stomach and CSU was able to match the fabric we found in her hand. I called T, and she's on her way back. Should be here in about five minutes."

He looked like he wanted to bolt.

"Don't make the same mistake twice, Professor."

The _same_ mistake? There had been so many.

"Stay. Put."

Well, that was clear enough. He was developing a real appreciation for strong-minded, clear-thinking, plain-speaking women.

"Do you have a thing for Indiana Jones?"

"Mm-hm", she said removing the cloth and turning her concentration back to Doreen Bonham's bowel. "He always knows the treasure when he sees it."

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Lisbon was back in six minutes, and, armed with evidence, Jane's insights and a healthy dose of impatience, she headed back out to arrest the administrative assistant to the advertising agency's president, Jane in tow. Ryan Laskey broke down under her double-teaming with the consultant, confessed and was booked in two hours' time. As she finished going over the autopsy results with Lydia, she realized Jane had disappeared yet again and was refusing to answer his cell. Once the paperwork was finalized, she sent the others home to Sacramento and traipsed back downstairs to the morgue, grumping to the ME that she would have to make the nearly two-hour drive back in that damn ugly deathtrap of a car of his.

Not ten minutes after Rigsy, Cho and Van Pelt had pulled out of the precinct parking lot, Jane showed up with a deep sturdy, double-handled bag.

"Where have you been? And what is that?"

"It's a picnic," he answered as if he thought it should be obvious.

"The last time you had this idea a dead man fell out of the sky," she groaned.

"I can almost guarantee there will be no sky-diving corpses. And he wasn't dead until he hit the ground."

"Jane, it's late. I'm tired. This was supposed to be a holiday. You've been AWOL for most of the day, playing at God-only-knows-what, and I'm supposed to be having a few glasses of wine enjoying somebody else's fireworks."

He ignored the fact that most of his absence had been by her design and shook the bag at her with a look of pure glee on his face. "Exactly."

Her eyes narrowed. "What are you up to?"

"Don't want to tell you. It's better if I show you."

"No, Jane, it's really better if you tell me."

He grinned and bobbed his head sideways toward the door, an invitation for her to forget she was irritated and just go along. He bobbed a second time, a little less sure of himself. It took him five seconds to give in to her dug-in heels. He murmured at her in defeat.

"I made a picnic. There are fireworks at the Presidio, and . . ."

It suddenly hit her that it was the Fourth of July, and Jane had made a "next time", and when he shrugged his shoulders and looked at his shoes in disappointment, she wished she had let him show her. It also occurred to her that he was trying to make up for the day, even though much of what had tried her patience with regards to him had been of her own doing. It was all really rather sweet and very thoughtful. She remembered the last time they had watched fireworks together. _Fireworks are good for us. They work._ The quick succession of sentimental observations topped off by that final thought made her feel strangely off balance, and in the blind stubbornness learned by people who have practiced a lifetime of self-defense, she nearly rebounded and ordered him to forget about the stupid picnic and drive her back to Sacramento _right now_. And then, remembering they _weren't_ the only people in the room, she caught Lydia Stanton grinning a dare at her over Jane's left shoulder.

"Well, what are we waiting for?"

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Lisbon nearly asked him about his car when they left the precinct, but when she saw the clog of traffic and people near the Presidio, she was glad they'd taken the cab for which Jane had called. Her positivity ebbed as they crested a ridge of a park walkway and she looked across the grassy expanse wondering how in the world they were to find a place to stand, let alone sit comfortably. Jane took hold of her elbow, drawing her close to his side to force her to keep up with him, motioning forward with the bag suspended in his other hand. She spotted the green knoll, backed by a thick-trunked black oak to which he was leading her. The spot would have been perfect except that it was obviously already taken, a blanket spread, a boy of about eleven sitting in its center guarding a mid-sized cooler and glaring at anyone who came too close. As Jane approached, the boy spotted him and a huge grin broke across his belligerent features.

"This okay, Mister?" he queried eagerly.

"You did very well, Nate. An excellent guardian!"

Jane slid his hand into his trouser pocket and withdrew a folded but crisp twenty dollar bill, snapped it open between his thumbs and forefingers then handed it to the boy with a flourish. Nate barely took time to call out a hurried thanks before he broke and ran. Jane wasted no time, kneeling on the blanket and dipping into the sack.

"This is where you were all afternoon? Finding a picnic spot? Hiring a street urchin to hold it for you?"

Jane looked up at her face then down to where her feet still stood just off of the blanket's edge, as if she wasn't sure she wanted anything to do with his plan yet.

"Well, he's actually a _park_ urchin, and I also spent a great deal of time at a deli and wine shop."

He sat back on his ankles, hands on his thighs, waiting for her to make up her mind that she appreciated his efforts. After all, this was for her, and the only reason he'd had the time was because she had refused to give him any. She was lucky he wasn't sulking.

"I got apple pie . . . and vanilla custard?"

She took a moment to consider him. She hadn't missed how stiff he was after the interview with the boyfriend or how distant he'd sounded on the phone when she'd ordered him away from the ad agency. She hadn't wanted to take him upstairs, unsure of how her former co-workers and the newer cops who passed by her image in the downstairs case every day would perceive him—her—them together. And she didn't want to be made to look foolish. But she had resolved on the way back that afternoon that she would take him upstairs and introduce him around. He could hold his own, and so could she. She had been disappointed to look away from Lydia's findings only to find him gone.

She sat down on the blanket, leaning against the tree, legs straight out and ankles crossed, letting him spread his offerings in front of her, determined to enjoy every bite of whatever he had bought, which turned out to be quite a lot. After plying her with root beer, turkey sandwiches, hand cut potato chips and curried rice salad, Jane suggested they let their dinner settle during the fireworks then dip into the promised apple pie during the late-night, in-the-park showing of "Independence Day".

A brilliant half-hour of bombs bursting in mid-air, a bottle of wine and two bowls of pie later, Lisbon was nodding off before the fat lady sang. When her head sank to his shoulder, Jane decided he would wait to wake her when the movie ended and the crowd thinned somewhat before they would make their way to where he had parked his car earlier on a nearby street.

The next thing he knew, the insides of his eyelids seemed to be glowing red, and something thick and hard was nudging his latissimus dorsi.

"Hey. Lovebirds. Time to get up."

Jane groaned and opened his eyes to the brightest dawn's early light he'd ever suffered through. The uniformed cop bending over him dug his shoe into Jane's back a bit more by way of follow up with an irritatingly chipper, "Wakey-wakey!"

When Jane rolled to his back and squinted up at the rustling tree leaves above him, the young man looked down at him, leaning forward with his hands on his hips.

"Buddy, aren't you a little old for this kind of thing?" Why did everyone under thirty think there was an age limit on making out under the stars? Not that they had been, of course. They were only—Jane couldn't remember the last time he'd blushed.

The officer remained bent forward at the waist, and Jane realized he was staring down at Lisbon, peering at what little of her face he could see as she lay on her side, her long hair tangling across her cheek and down her arm. It was obvious he thought he recognized her and was trying to place from where. Jane hadn't thought about the Presidio being in Lisbon's precinct and remembered those photos in the glass case.

"I'm up," Jane said with fogged determination, raising himself to lean back on his elbows, effectively obscuring Lisbon from view. He offered a sheepish thanks to the policeman, who decided to let it go and walked away with a wink and a grin, leaving the guy to clean up the mess and get his lady-friend up.

Jane turned his gaze back to Lisbon, resisting the urge to brush her hair out of her face. Looking down at her now, he realized he missed this—this normal thing of having someone next to him, sleeping soft and warm. Watching her, something rolled over him and settled deep in his stomach. It wasn't lust, and he wouldn't call it love, not of the romantic sort anyway. He realized it was simple want, but it was so strong that were it any deeper he knew he would have to rename it as _need_. He knew he wasn't deserving of anything he might want, had even lost the right to the wanting. The need he had thought gone forever when Angela had died, but he understood watching Lisbon sleep, curled to where his chest had been only a few minutes previous, that while the possibility of fulfillment may no longer exist, desire for it was present as ever.

He didn't want to wake her yet, didn't want the idyll to end, though he knew such thinking was ridiculously pointless. He also knew she would be mad as hell.

"Is he gone?"

He smiled at her muffled morning voice. He loved it when she surprised him.

"Yeah. You want me to throw the blanket over your head and carry you to the car?"

"Did you pay that kid to stick around?"

"I think I could manage it myself. You're not _that_ heavy."

She rolled to her back and smoothed her hair out of her face so he could see her glare. He ignored it, knowing her ire was all pretend, and sat up, bending one knee and draping his forearm across it.

"How do you feel?" he asked, looking out toward the bay.

"Like I slept on the ground all night and woke up covered in San Francisco." She looked down at her loafers. "Is that _dew_?"

He chuckled and inhaled to answer her as he turned to look toward her feet then paused to peer more closely at them.

"I believe that's exactly what that is."

She struggled to sit up beside him, bracing her body weight back against her straightened arms down to her palms as they lay flat on the ground behind her.

"We slept here all night."

"So it seems."

"And a uniformed cop just woke us up."

"Again, you are correct."

"Is your car nearby?"

He waved toward the adjoining street. "As perfectly planned."

At that she snorted. "This—" she motioned at their position and predicament in general, "—was perfectly planned?"

"Well . . ." he mewed his lips together and shrugged, not wanting to admit aloud he'd miscalculated.

She snorted again and stood, pushing herself up using his shoulders as a bolster. He groaned as she took his hand where it still dangled from his knee.

"Come on. I'm not cleaning this up."

He shook his hand free of hers. "Then leave me down here. It'll be easier to crawl around as I clean than to bend over."

She stood and looked down at him a moment, hands on hips, and his eyes followed her, lazily woebegone, when she started picking up their picnic.

"No, Lisbon, really. I'll get that," he said, still watching her, still unmoving.

"I've got it, Professor," she said, the opportunity to laugh at him making her unusually good-natured for so early in the morning. She carried trash to the nearby can and dropped the glass into the recycle receptacle next to it then walked back to take both of his hands and tug him up to his feet before bending to retrieve his jacket.

"Where does this go?" she asked idly as she lifted the damp blanket and started winding it up.

"In my trunk," he said, rolling the tip of his tongue against the inside of his lips.

She looked up at him curiously. "You keep a blanket in your trunk?"

"Yeah," he said, rubbing his hands up and down his vest and frowning at his surroundings. "You never know."

"You never know. When you might have a picnic?"

"Meh," he offered in non-answer, rolling his neck until it popped.

They walked to the car, and she felt the sudden urge to explain something to him, something it was important that he understand. As she gave into that foreign compulsion, she decided to yield to another and linked her arm through his, grateful that he didn't so much as turn his head at the novelty of her initiating physical contact between them.

"I was going to take you upstairs and introduce you around yesterday, when Rigsby and I got back, after we finished with Lydia. There aren't so many of the old squad left, but . . ."

Her voice trailed off in embarrassment. She didn't know why she had wanted to make introductions, didn't know why it had bothered her that he had left without a word, and certainly didn't understand why it was so important that he know what she had intended.

"You were afraid I would embarrass you."

"Yes." It was almost a relief to admit her pettiness. She should be ashamed of herself.

"It's okay, Lisbon. I get it."

"Well . . . I don't," she blurted, and almost immediately a blush fanned across her cheeks. She turned to look away from him under the guise of checking the traffic on the street they were about to cross, but he had seen the telltale pink.

"You didn't want me to embarrass you. It was a reasonable concern. After all, I do seem to do it quite a bit."

"Why _is_ that exactly?" she asked.

He could hear the humor in her voice as well as imagine the expression on her face and turned to look down at her.

_He always knows the treasure when he sees it._

The glib answer that had come to mind so readily died on his tongue, and he froze, forcing her to stop with him in the middle of the street.

"You're more than—_above_—any embarrassment I could cause you. You should know—I want you to know that."

It was the kind of thing she would have ordinarily made light of if someone else had said it. But Jane didn't say this kind of thing lightly. Oh, he mocked her, made fun of her, teased her, even scorned what he saw as her conventional way of thinking, but he never toyed with her, never made light of her character. He quickly moved past her to the car, and she let him have some space for the time it took him to stow the remains of their picnic in his trunk. As soon as he shut the lid, however, she waylaid him, suddenly turning and sliding sideways to lean back against the car directly in front of him, peering up at him.

"Explain to me exactly what you mean by that."

And this would be the part where he looked away and frowned into the distance, stroking his vest and acting like he hadn't really meant anything. But her gaze was too bright, too questioning, too . . . green.

"I see you," he said softly, looking directly into her eyes.

She fought the urge to swallow deep.

"And?"

A pause, a consideration, a heartbeat really, and his face relaxed into a lazy grin.

"Why, Lisbon. You're a treasure. Don't you know?"

He flicked her lightly on the nose and walked around her to the driver's side, quickly unlocking and opening the door and folding himself into the seat so he could grip the steering wheel and get his breathing under control. After a few seconds, he hazarded a glimpse in the rearview mirror and was only slightly surprised to see Lisbon still leaning against the trunk lid where he'd left her, apparently in need of some time alone herself. She dipped her head, and he could tell by the movement of her elbow that she was rubbing her fingertips at the furrow between her brows. His own brow furrowed in sympathy before a smile teased at his lips, he was that amused that a grown adult's full upper body could fit within the confines of his rearview. He watched her straighten her back and roll her shoulders.

He really did need to do something about those knots. His hands tightened on the wheel again, and he made himself breathe deep, fighting the forbidden thought that tempted the fringes of his mind. _These next times are seriously damaging my calm_, he thought wryly. But he knew he wouldn't give them up. Not unless she did first.

Breakfast. They would stop for breakfast and hit a couple of farm stands along the way, meandering back rather than driving straight through. He'd find a way to work in that backrub. Even if he had to use a little voodoo-muju.

**END**

**Next Installment: August 15th, Korean Liberation Day (Thanks, Cho!).**


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